The BNP, xenophobia and the Beeb

The BBC made the right decision in inviting the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, to Question Time. The BNP needs to be scrutinised and exposed for the racist party that it is. However, the potential surge in support for the BNP will not have been Griffin’s appearance on the beeb. Something much more sinister happened last Thursday. Question Time’s panel and chair coalesced to attack Griffin forcing him to rebut rather than engage in argument. The difficult issues of immigration and race relations were not debated. They have never been debated. Both the government and the opposition have been appeasing the tabloid press with the ‘tough’ talk on immigration and an artificially constructed idea of Britishness. Every time Blunkett opened his mouth, I wondered whether I would be chucked out of the country.
The success of the BNP is partly the outcome of the underlying xenophobia of the government’s rhetoric and policies, and of the vilification of immigrants and asylum seekers in some of the press.
Sadly, the panellists and the chair of Question Time, by showing condescension and antagonism, did not expose Nick Griffin. They turned him into a victim. Yet, it is the feeling of being a victim of a detached government, of an economy in recession, and of a fast-changing society, which moves people to vote for the anger of the BNP. Politicians can no longer ignore the dangers of racism and bigotry. It is time they engage with the British public on all issues before the BNP wins any more support.

Personality: are we all just a bag of chemicals?

I went to the debate organised by Cardiff University Neuroscience Society entitled “Personality: are we all just a bag of chemicals?”

Quite obviously no, as argued in the debate by Dr Lois Grayson and Dr Jonathan Webber. The problem is that the speakers in favour of the motion, Prof. Norris and Dr Keedweel, also seemed to think that we are not just a bag of chemicals. Below are some thoughts.

1. Human beings are, of course, made of chemicals, but not only. As I pointed out in my intervention, it’s like looking closely at a musical instrument, getting to know all its parts and how they work without hearing the music. The music is not simply the outcome of the parts of the instrument.

2. Prof. Norris and Dr. Keedwell answered that you can explain everything, including our inner being, through chemicals. It needn’t be reductive. Except, we simply don’t know, so if we don’t know how to explain things through 'scientifically', we still need to concede that there might be other explanations.

3. Prof. Norris seemed to 'explain away' ethics by calling it fiction. Even if it was all a 'dream', we are dreaming the same dream. It's called reality.

4.I didn’t say, but I should have said, that they seem to believe in an Aristotelic God, or first motor. With or without an ultimate intelligence, the entire universe is understood as a scientific reality. I'm sympathetic to it (because I like Maimonide and Tommaso D'Aquino), but it requires the honesty of recognising that it’s a belief.

5. Both Prof Norris and Dr Keedwell claimed that our personality is the result of the interaction between chemicals and the environment. I agree with it, but this statement doesn't agree with the motion!
If you believe that we are chemicals, but also that there is an environment (social, economic, moral) outside of us that has an effect on us, then you believe that we are not just chemicals!!!
If it was, it would be the Aristotelic God. If one leaves the door open for the environment to be explained by social/economic/moral theories and concedes that the environment has an effect on our personality, it follows that those non-biological theories can explain how our personality is shaped.

In conclusion, by accepting that the environment (culture, politics, economics, social relations etc.) is not a mere outcome of biology, but that, in fact, changes biology (which is what evolutionists claim), then we are not just a bag of chemicals. If we, instead, affirm that the universe can all be explained/ understood through science (maths, biology, chemistry etc.), then we subscribe to Aristotle (and ditch personal autonomy). We might like (or need) to explain the world through different theoretical systems, be they scientific or philosophical, but at the end of the day they are all just beliefs, and beliefs change our personality!

Chocolate made me do it

Research from Cardiff University 'found' that "10-year-olds who ate confectionery daily were significantly more likely to have been convicted for violence between the ages of 29 and 34." (as reported on ITN).

I'm rather concerned at this kind of research, it seems to misunderstand violence, its complexity and multi-dimensionality, completely. I'll have to read the journal article now. Yet, didn't the thought of the influence of family, economic status, education and skills cross the researchers' minds? I could understand research looking for genetic predisposition (and predisposition is all it is, we are NOT predetermined machines), but sweets???

In fairness, the article quotes lead researcher Dr Simon Moore, who said: "Our favoured explanation is that giving children sweets and chocolate regularly may stop them learning how to wait to obtain something they want. Not being able to defer gratification may push them towards more impulsive behaviour, which is strongly associated with delinquency."

Doesn't he think that maybe it's upbringing? that it really doesn't matter whether it's sweets, toys or other?

In your throat: religion, entertainers and porn

I’m researching religion and I’m religious, so I’m biased. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that the mantra that religious people thrust religion down your throat is the perfect scapegoat. I believe religion/spirituality is making a come back, but it has relatively little visibility.

It is very useful to pile up one’s suspicions, fears and hatred against one general phenomenon, such as religion. Much harder is to look around and see what clogs up our minds, what causes compulsive behaviour, be it consumption, selfishness and mindless competition against others.

Religion has been a great force for evil. It has been used and abused in the atrocious ways, but to keep on thinking that religious institutions or people are brainwashing us to …. To do what exactly?
Some are reactionary, homophobic, sexist and disrespectful of other people’s opinions. They are everything but pious, but think hardly everywhere thrusting religion down our throats. Are the majority of religious people and movements brainwashing us to treat people with no respect, to consider life lived ‘to the full’ when under the influence of drugs, and to care only about ourselves?

What stops us reflecting on ourselves is the culture of emptiness propagated by the media, where entertainers are ‘stars’, make huge profits notwithstanding a distinctive lack of ability, let alone talent. They impersonate an epoch of vacuity and vanity.
We feel outrage at MPs’ fiddling of expenses, bankers’ bonuses, but no sign of displeasure with some TV personality earning millions. It’s not public money but the entertainment industry revolves around the trashing of our imagination. It also portrays life according to racial/national stereotypes, homophobia, blindness towards disability and, of course, the debasement of sex.

The commodification of sex has gone mainstream and, perhaps, it wouldn’t be so bad if there was a movement for ethical entertainment, something like the Italian Slow Food movement, which reacted against the ‘McDonaldsation’ of society.
I’m not saying all entertainment treats human relationships through the pornographic eye, but most of the love and sex in the media is false, empty and, often, debasing.

Yet, the ‘message’ of pornography, which defines us as creatures driven only by our instincts, has gone mainstream. I feel it’s so because of the lack of alternatives. As consumers, we have demanded the ‘healthy option’ from what we eat; yet, somehow, we care more about our food than how we see ourselves and how we think.

Love seems to me the most complex and yet all-encompassing experience of all, do we really want to deprive it of the spirit? Can we have an ethical entertainment movement? If we leave it to the theo-cons, we leave ourselves no options open to us.

This is a reflection from a liberal religious person who would like to think that there’s more to humanity than what entertainers give us. Of course, I’m biased.

The demise of culture

More nonsense from the Guardian, I'm having a field-day!
This time is from M. Bunting who gives the impression of having never entered a library preferring some cheap reads of pop-science.
Madeleine Bunting’s astonishment at learning that human beings are influenced by their environment in the choices they make is bewildering. Marx, Gramsci and Bourdieu, to name but a few, analysed how society, economics and culture shape our consciousness and dispositions. Jung and Freud theorised on the functioning of our minds and how these are affected by the world around us and inside of us. Freud’s nephew, Bernays, put his uncle’s theories into marketing practices. The plasticity of the brain has been part of neuropsychiatry for a rather long time and one would like to think that evolution theory is rather well established. Today’s “potent brew of extraordinary discoveries” is but a bad use of language which confuses free choice with free will, and volition with individual autonomy. The mechanics of the brain do not exhaust consciousness. The social and cultural inputs do not prevent individual autonomy. There is more to human beings than their functioning. The demise of culture has emptied our society of ideas and filled it with ready-made answers as if we were just another product.

the demise of science

Today's top prize for idiotic nonsense has to go to McFadden from the Guardian. In a rather confused and confusing article on the 'science' of artificial life, he cheers ‘mankind’ (sic) creating nature as a technological product to suit our lifestyle. Maybe it's not his fault if science has been turned into technology. Maybe it's not his fault if he, following technocrats, misses the point of the ‘world’s woes’. He stops at the symptoms instead of looking at the causes. That would require thinking a little deeper and questioning the premises of the 'science' he's championing.
More food and more fuel for more production will not end starvation, wars and diseases. The world is afflicted by overpopulation which condemns the poor to famine and ill-health, and the environment to ever increasing pollution and scarcity of resources. McFadden’s idea of science is a game of technology, which has abandoned its loftier aims of understanding nature, including human nature, and preserving the world rather than playing with it. To create new life forms as if they were toys from a conveyer-belt is to feed the insatiable beast of unrestrained production; it is to exploit nature rather than live of it and in it. It is at best counter-productive and at worst morally corrupt.

The media and Al Aswany's paranoia

In today's Guardian, Alaa Al Aswany concocted a rather ludicrous conspiratory fantasy. He suggests that the Western media take the 'Silver Ring Thing' seriously and that if the same tosh had been uttered by a Muslim it would be condemned as mysoginist. Of course, Al Aswany doesn't seem to disagree with the 'Silver Ring Thing' and, in fact, it says that it's in line with Muslim Arab culture. His only concern is that, when chastity is spoken of by white Christians, the media are respectful, but not so when it's promoted by Muslims. That's nonsense. The 'Silver Ring Thing' has been duly made fun of for a number of years. It's a movement mostly present in the States and rather unsuccessful given the latest stats on teen pregnacies and venereal diseases. The European media cover it for its comic angle not because they take it seriously. Quite rightly too as they are extremely reductionist in their interpretation of chastity itself.
In another flight of fancy, Al Aswany complains that the Western media make a fuss about the alleged vote rigging in Iran and not in Egypt. That might be because the opposition to the Iranian elections' results did not start in the West, but in Iran itself. Indeed the media should be reporting more of what happens in the world, including Europe, but that's hardly because of biases.
The nonsense becomes farce when he goes on to accuse the Western media of having double standards because a woman murdered by a racist is not given the same salience than one murdered by the Iranian authorities, while protesting in the name of democracy. A woman dies as a result of domestic violence every three days. They are not made into martyrs in the news. Spurious comparisons do not prove bias.
Al Aswany might be supporting a liberal religion and democracy, although he doesn't seem to have a grasp of either. More importantly, in his dismissal of the Western media, he fails to understand the key role of the questioning of practices and ideas, be they political or religious, which are the backbone of liberal democracy.

Faith and reason - a 'metaphysical mistake

I was happily resting from blogging when Karen Armstrong’s confused article on faith and belief managed to wake me up. I fear Karen Armstrong has made quite a ‘metaphysical mistake’ in her article on belief and reason (‘Metaphysical mistake’).
Armstrong states that in Greek thought there were two ways to the ‘truth’: one through mythos (myth) and one through logos (reason). The former was a more psychological (affective?) way to the truth, whilst the latter a more pragmatic mode of thought. She forgets to say that myth progressively lost importance as logos gained more, and affirms somewhat arbitrarily that myth was first and foremost a ‘programme of action’, especially within a religious context. Since when?
This, however, is certainly not true. Myths have always conveyed a truth, but not necessarily stirred one to act. Religious practice is not the fruit of religious mythologies; rather they are often born out of in the practical realities of a society and are certainly developed through practical reason.
Most concerning of all, however, Armstrong’s belief that theologians never worried about ‘proving’ God’s existence. Theologians, imbued with Aristotelic thinking, employed philosophy, the science of the day, to argue the existence of God. Thus, they defined God as First Cause, for example. Armstrong seems to engage in an exercise of apologetics (a neo-Platonic one!) instead of recognising that the birth of modern science would have not been possible had religious authorities not adopted (and monopolised) science. The confusion of belief and faith comes from an obtuse understanding and practice of both science and religion. The transcendent cannot be put under the microscope, yet this does not mean that it cannot be enquired by different means, as in the case of mathematical analysis or physics. The religious’ quest, on the other hand, should not stop at affirming God’s existence, but seek to unravel morality for humankind.